Chapter One
The proud city of Ekamet, jewel of the realm of Assevan, wears the pale, icy verdure of the Bone Forest like a mantle, shrouded as it is on all sides by miles of contorted, thick-clustering trees — except, of course, for where its ancient buildings give way to the sea. Out beyond the confines of the Bones, the plains stretch for many miles farther north. Drowned in snow for much of the year, they are loosely scattered with knots of haggard evergreens, and an occasional stout little town braving all the worst that winds and storms can throw at it. Some of these are built from brick and wood and stone, and endure; others are just for the winter, the walls of their dwellings wrought from stacked blocks of snow and translucent ice.
They are not always rude, primitive structures.
